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Susan Tiefenbrun

Director, Center for Global Legal Studies Director, Thomas Jefferson School of Law/Zhejiang University College of Law Summer Program in Hangzhou, ChinaDirector, Thomas Jefferson School of Law Summer Program in Nice, France

J.D., New York University School of Law;Ph.D., Columbia University, magna cum laude;M.S., University of Wisconsin, magna cum laude;B.S., University of Wisconsin, magna cum laude

Professor Tiefenbrun has a J.D. degree from New York University School of Law, a Ph.D in French from Columbia University summa cum laude, a Master of Science from Wisconsin University, and a Bachelor of Arts from Wisconsin University (Phi Beta Kappa as a junior) where she majored in French, Russian, and Education. Professor Tiefenbrun taught French language and literature for many years in Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence College. She now teaches international law in Thomas Jefferson School of Law where she is the Director of the Center for Global Legal Studies and the former Director of the LL.M. Programs in International Trade and in American Legal Studies. She practiced law and worked on international business transactions at Coudert Brothers in New York for many years. At Thomas Jefferson School of Law, she continues to direct and teach in the study abroad program in France (which she founded twenty years ago) and in China (which she founded seven years ago). For her efforts at fostering educational and cultural cooperation between France and the United States, she was awarded the French Legion of Honor medal by President Jacques Chirac in 2003. Her special interests are international law, corporate law, securities law, international intellectual property, women and international human rights law, and law and literature. She is the President of the Law and Humanities Institute West Coast Branch. She has written extensively on human trafficking as a form of contemporary slavery. She speaks ten foreign languages including Mandarin, Chinese. Among her numerous written works are a book-length study of Chinese, Russian and Eastern European joint venture laws and numerous articles on international intellectual property, international law issues, and human trafficking. She has edited three books on law and the arts, war crimes, and legal ethics. Her most recent books are Decoding International Law: Semiotics and the Humanities (Oxford University Press, 2010), Women’s International and Comparative Human Rights (Carolina Academic Press, 2012) and Tax-Free-Trade Zones of the World and in the United States (Edward Elgar Press, 2012).

The Paradox of International Adjudication: Developments in the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the World Court, and the International Criminal Court, 25 N.C.J. Int'l L. & Com. Reg. 551 (2000)